Life with Lola

Lola (the picture on the right) is the new love of our lives. She is 4 months old, black and silver and could rival an atomic explosion for energy. Lola is a miniature Schnauzer puppy - an unusual choice as a pet purchase for us, as our intention was to buy a Weimaraner (the picture on the left), but a Singapore apartment is not the right home for a such a large and energetic dog, so the Weim will have to wait.

It happened like this. We were at the Swiss Butcher (Singapore's best expat meatery) last Saturday, (no, of course we didn't get her there, read on.....) and there is a a pet shop in the same street, right by where the car was parked. There was a sign in the window that said they had puppies in stock; we went in - thinking to have a look but with no intention of buying just yet - and came out an hour later the proud adoptive parents of the lovely Lola. She is a bundle of fun, and has changed our lives. Ding, our housekeeper and I are the main puppy trainers, with toilet training at the top of our list. She has made considerable progress in her first week, so I am hopeful of a life where newspapers become just reading material once again sometime soon.

Training a puppy may be a labour of love, but it is definitely labour. It's really important to be firm and for your "no" to mean "no". The technique I use when she is about to start eating my shoes, for example, is to clap my hands together loudly and say an equally loud "NO!". Chris, my Psychologist husband on the other hand, tries to reason with her. It goes something like this - in a soft voice, oozing with love: "Now, Lola, stop eating those shoes, they're not a toy, sweetie".

I'll obviously have to establish myself as alpha dog in the very near future........

Tick tock

This post is dedicated to the Singaporean love of luxury watches. Not something I was aware of before we came, but something you can't miss when you live here. There are dozens and dozens of high-end watch emporia, selling all the fancy brands. The right watch is is hugely important - whether a classic marque, or a more modern designer timepiece. I was something of a Swatch girl until I arrived here, but I have fallen victim to the watch bug, and am now the proud owner of a limited edition Jaeger leCoultre Reverso watch (pictured here).

I'm stopping at one, but lots of people have many and you can even buy special watch winding boxes to keep them going all the time. Mine is wound by hand, but it would seem that your modern posh watches come equipped with automatic movement, meaning that they need neither batteries nor to be wound by hand, but are powered by the kinetic movement of the body. This is all very well while you are wearing the watch, but what about when you are not (presumably because you are favouring another of your collection )? Well you need never face this dilemma if you are the proud possessor of a watch winder box. It has a little motor that keeps the watches moving on a turntable (honestly) and therefore ready for action whenever needed. Who would have thought?

Unusually for Singapore, which has a very low crime rate, there was a major theft at the end of last year from Cortina Watch, a shop which sells all the top international watch brands. When staff opened up the shop the day after Christmas, they discovered that thieves had made away with almost 8 million Sing dollars worth of goodies. Not a very merry Christmas for Cortina, sadly.

Christmas being well and truly over, we are now en route to Chinese New Year (CNY). There are major sales going on (80% off DKNY at our local mall - you can imagine the melee) and the shops are full of traditional CNY delicacies. These are many and various - allow me to share a few with you, starting with the savoury:

• Sambal prawn rolls. These look like teeny weeny spring rolls, and are basically a sort of fried, intensely prawny crispy thing. My love of prawns made me think that I would really love these, but I'm afraid I found them overwhelmingly prawny.
• Abalone (pictured). This is available all year round, but it tends to feature on CNY dinner menus in much the same way as oysters do in France, or smoked salmon does in the UK. Basically a sea snail that comes in a variety of sizes, abalone is considered a sign of wealth and prosperity. I find the flesh rather tough and the texture not to my liking (no surprises there for my regular readers), and I have never forgotten AA Gill's (The Sunday Times restaurant critic) description of abalone, when he compared it to a certain female body part. Enough said.
• Yu sheng. Now this one I do like. This is a sort of raw fish salad (bear with me, it really is nice), which is traditionally served on the seventh day of CNY. It arrives at the table on a large serving plate, and the raw fish is accompanied by all manner of colourful raw vegetables - like shredded green and white radish, carrots and pickled ginger and topped with little crisps (gold coloured, to represent wealth), peanuts, sesame seeds, cinnamon, pepper and other spices. Every element has a meaning, and the various condiments are explained as they are added. The salad is served with very long chopsticks, which all present at the meal use to toss the salad. The higher the toss, the greater your good fortune will be. Very messy and great fun!

Moving to sweet, there are lots of choices:

• Pineapple tarts. These emanate from Peranakan cuisine and are bite-sized, buttery, sweet little treats. When we visited Malacca last year, we bought some at the mother of all pineapple tart bakeries (perhaps not quite the description used by the Malacca tourist authority, but you get my drift) and they were truly amazing. These tend to be a feature in our office in the run up to the new year holiday, although I haven't noticed any yet - must be my turn to buy.
• Nian gao. This comes in many forms, but the basic version is a glutinous rice cake, and can be pretty basic or extremely luxurious, round and filled with nuts and coconut or shaped and coloured like a fish and filled with durian. For a modern take on the traditional, you can find it translated into dumplings and even pralines.

So as we head into the year of the ox, I wish each and every one of you Gong. Xi Fa Cai!

The Worst Bits

It's only fair to offer a lit of balance after my last post, especially as I sit here with a swollen eye, having been bitten on the face - twice - by a ruddy mosquito. I don't get bitten often, to be fair, but when I do, they usually have a field day. So, in my book, insect life in the tropics definitely falls into this category. There are no malarial mosquitoes in Singapore, but there is Dengue Fever, caused by infection with a virus transmitted by the Aedes mosquito. Singapore is hot on Dengue prevention - achieved through stopping the Aedes mosquitoes breeding. They breed in stagnant water, including in the home, so people here are very vigilant about emptying the water from flower vases regularly, for example. The picture on the right is an Aedes mosquito biting a human, taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. I wonder how they got the bitee to volunteer?

It is a beautiful day today, and the weather for the last few days has been glorious, not too humid, and almost cool in the evenings. We have had occasional bouts of wind, in fact, and since we live on the 22nd floor, we can hear it howling around the corridors created by the high buildings in the neighbourhood. I love that, but the humidity is still a challenge. At my age, it's not always possible to separate a hot spell from a hot flush, but when the two arrive together, it's not good.

And finally, television. Now you may ask yourself, what is she thinking? Here she is, living in a tropical paradise, in a vibrant city, surrounded by wonderful places to visit (and working 12 hour days), what possible use could she possibly have for the delights of the small screen? If I tell you that we don't get Strictly Come Dancing, would that make everything clear? In fact, we don't get any of the UK terrestrial channels at all. To be fair, Strictly will start to be shown from next Sunday on the BBC Entertainment channel, but it's the fourth series (the one that has just finished was the sixth series, for those of you who are not aficionados of the show). Well, at least it takes away the stress of trying to work out who will win the danceoff each week.

And that's pretty much it for the worst bits of life in Singapore. Not exactly a long list, and seriously outweighed by the best bits. Come and see for yourself.